Brussels, Belgium, 18 October 2022 – Raito, the data access management software for modern data teams, today announces it has raised €4m in Seed funding as the company emerges from stealth mode in its mission to make data teams more productive by simplifying data access management.
The round was co-led by Dawn Capital, Europe’s largest B2B technology investor, and Crane VenturePartners, the London based firm leading the industry in graduation rates from seed to Series A, with participation from a range of angel investors including Collibra, Showpad and Harbr.
Raito was formed last year when co-founders Bart Vandekerckhove and Dieter Wachters, who served as Product Manager for Data Privacy and Vice President for Engineering respectively at Collibra, left the company to create a ‘paradigm shift’ in the way data teams manage access to data.
Since then, they have created an impressive team, with other former Collibra colleagues on board including Michael Maes and Michael Tandecki, who built Collibra's first AI/ML modules used by some of the world's biggest companies, as well as Nicolas Pirotte, who was one of the driving architects of Collibra's front-end. Today, Collibra is the global leader in data governance, most recently valued at $5.3bn.1
Raito is now launching to customers in Europe and North America, targeting mid-sized organisations, with between 100 and 3000 people, with the intention to disrupt the €11bn data access management industry.
In recent years the falling costs and broader democratisation of storage and compute led to companies rapidly scaling their data teams, with the consequence of data engineers becoming overburdened by data access requests from those additional team members. Companies have often responded to this challenge by simply opening the data to everyone. Access management went from being tightly controlled to being almost completely ungoverned. Tighter privacy regulations and a string of data breaches has forced companies to review this decision, though a return to centralised access management is inadequate in industries where data is a competitive asset.
Raito’s “productivity-first” approach provides data analysts faster access to data, removes the burdensome data access requests from data engineers, and gives data governance the tools to control, monitor and report on data usage, and in doing so balances the tightrope of innovation with security.
Raito’s launch by largely former Collibra employees is further evidence that the European technology ecosystem is now at a point of maturity where employees of highly successful European start-ups break away to bring their expertise and experience to new ventures, solving new problems.
Commenting on the announcement, Chief Executive Officer Bart Vandekerckhove, said: “As data management becomes more complex, companies are having to choose between innovation and security – it’s that dichotomy that acts as a straitjacket for businesses where data is their most competitive asset. I’m extremely excited Raito is now able to emerge from stealth mode and we can get our productivity-first solution into the hands of customers”.
Henry Mason, Partner at Dawn Capital, said: “The data access management industry is ripe for a shake-up with existing solutions just not fit for purpose. Having witnessed their impressive achievements at Collibra over many years, we’re proud to support Bart, Dieter and the team in their mission to rethink data access management and in so doing to unlock the immense potential of data-driven organisations”.
Scott Sage, Partner at Crane Venture Partners, said: “Access to data is a multi-billion dollar problem that desperately needs solving. Businesses and entire data teams are not able to reach their full potential because of data access management inefficiencies, but with Raito they stand a chance. Bart and Dieter have built and scaled data products to some of the most demanding companies on the planet, and it’s a pleasure to support their dream of helping data teams to fly”.
1. TechCrunch - Data intelligence company Collibra brings in another $250M to more than double its valuation https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/09/data-intelligence-company-collibra-brings-in-another-250m-to-more-than-double-its-valuation/
About Raito
Raito makes data teams more productive by simplifying data access management. Raito’s productivity-first approach provides observability, collaboration and automation of data access requests, all whilst respecting privacy and security. Raito gives data analysts faster access to data, removes the burdensome data access requests from data engineers, and gives data governance the tools to control, monitor and report on data usage. Raito scales as you scale, delivering value from day one.
About Dawn Capital
Dawn is Europe’s largest specialist B2B software investor, with assets under management of $1.5bn. Dawn partners with founders building the next generation of software leaders to create category-defining global companies. Its investments include Mimecast (taken private by Permira in $5.8bn transaction), iZettle (sold to PayPal for $2.2bn), Tink (acquired by Visa for $2.0bn), as well as Collibra, Dataiku, Quantexa, Soldo, Copper and Firebolt, amongst others.
Read more at dawncapital.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Crane Venture Partners
Crane is a London HQ’d venture firm that invests into seed stage companies founded by people with deep experience in the problems they’re solving. They look for software that creates a step change for real businesses, and tools and infrastructure for the creators, builders, and operators of tomorrow. Investing out of their second fund, they have invested early in the journeys ofCyberHaven, H2O.ai, Onfido, Tessian and Tinybird.
